Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn

by Hic Iacet Mori

Of the billions of stars in the vastness of space, only one stood as the center of our infinite universe. Just as there are billions of people in the vastness of the world, only one stood as the center of your entire existence. Remember, however, that even the sun will vanish, in a loud explosion of departure or a quiet whisper of farewell, a lost star amidst the billions that would never come back.

"You skipped school again," a reproachful voice said from the window.

Sasuke sluggishly straightened up, groaning, his muscles aching in all the wrong places. His sleepy eyes took in the orange and black blob perched on his window ledge and instinctively classified it as a wanted guest, before trying to look past the blob with its strange yellow haze into the oddly dark skies. He yawned and winced. His neck was so stiff.

"But you seemed really kinda tired," the same voice went on, almost grudgingly, "so I guess it's okay."

He gave the blob his best drowsy glare, managing to simply look like a ruffled black-and-white kitten instead. The blob laughed, a loud husky laughter that sent a sudden jolt down his spine, and then the sleep threads woven in his mind abruptly cleared and he jumped up in surprise.

"You're early!" he said half-accusingly, pointing with all his surprised might. Sasuke groaned again, this time for a different reason, as he fell gracelessly back on his seat and used the same pointing hand to clutch at his head, squeezing his eyes shut. Damn, why did his head hurt so much?

She nimbly jumped down, her posture conveying her disbelief. "So that's what you did? Sleep all day?"

He opened an eye balefully. "I have no time for your —" A black box appeared in front of him, digits flashing red and intensifying his headache, bursts of colored dots exploding behind his eyes. He didn't need to look up to see her frown—the way she waved his clock before his face, he had a feeling she wasn't too happy with him.

"Oh," he said instead. His head was pounding so hard...

Her voice softened. "Your head hurts, doesn't it?" she asked. Her obvious concern made him want to smile despite the pain. Sasuke glanced away, covering his mouth with a hand. "You're probably dehydrated from the long sleep," he heard her mutter. Her voice seemed to be drifting away and he felt an uncanny panic claw in his chest. He abruptly twisted around, trying to follow her path. He whimpered at the sharp jolt in his head.

"You didn't eat too," she murmured, "Imma go down and fix you something light so you can take something. Be back soon, yeah?"

He heard the click of his door and all was silent once again. He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth against the cruel jackhammer in his head. Sasuke wanted desperately to pound his head on the wall—he couldn't believe he slept the whole day, and now he was dealing with the mother of hangovers without even getting intoxicated.

He had never indulged in alcohol before and any lingering curiosity was gone.

He pried his eyes open, rubbing away the tears from squeezing them too hard, and looked at his dead laptop. Sighing, he plugged it to its charger and slumped back on his chair, tired. His stare conveyed the emptiness he was currently feeling.

Minutes passed and then he mechanically reached forward to reboot his laptop. A sudden thought stopped him and he decided against it. She was here, after all, and he didn't want her to deal with the mess he was whenever he opened his brother's DVD. The Videos folder still niggled at his mind, but he knew there wouldn't be much thinking going on while she was still here.

Sasuke was still trying not to think about everything he had learned. It was too amazing, too shocking, too much. He couldn't digest everything or he would choke or burst.

Videos.

Strange. It was something he found really strange, that Itachi would call the folder Videos. His brother was as much of a grammar Nazi as he was, even in simple file-naming conventions. Itachi wouldn't make a mistake like that.

His eyes widened.

Videos.

Sasuke abruptly leaned forward, ignoring how his head reeled at the motion and rebooted his laptop. He tapped his foot impatiently, the barely perceptible sound pounding in his ears, pausing slightly as a wonderful aroma floated to his nose. Wow, she was serious about fixing him something...

Something flitted in his stomach, making him feel light-headed. Oh hell, was he going to throw up?

He swallowed against the uncomfortable feeling, focusing on the DVD. He clicked the Videos folder and, holding his breath, pressed Ctrl A.

This folder contains 1 hidden file. If you want to select these files as well, enable viewing of hidden files in the Folder Options control panel.

Sasuke snorted. What a cheap trick. Clearly, his brother wanted him to see this too. But why hide it at all? Unless it's more important than the first video... His brows furrowed. Or maybe Itachi wasn't sure if he wanted Sasuke to see it or not? Itachi hid a lot from him, after all, and maybe what this hidden video contained was another secret hidden from him...

He abruptly slammed down the laptop—he could hear her approaching footsteps. Odd. This was the first time Sasuke heard them.

The door opened wide enough for a blonde head to peek in.

"Hey there, you up for an uber-late breakfast-slash-lunch-slash-dinner?" she asked, her voice purposely low as she gently kicked the door aside. He glanced behind and saw her holding a tray with a bowl, a glass, a cup, and a spoon. He hummed in assent, not trusting his voice to hide what he felt at her gesture. Damn, he was feeling giddy and she just brought him food!

She placed the tray beside him on his working desk and leaned back, a hand scratching on her nape. "Well, I fixed you chicken soup—really good for the empty stomach, y'know. You can't eat anything heavy yet 'coz you're likely to throw them up, what with you missing a lot of meals and all. Glass of water, cup of tea to drink with the headache med. All good?"

Grateful as he was—touched, pleased, damned happy—Sasuke couldn't resist a jibe as he reached for his spoon. "Aa, Okaa-san."

She snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. "Good. I expect you under the sheets after, young man."

His grip on the silverware almost faltered, having to run the statement in his head twice to take it as it was—a riposte and not an innuendo. Damn, his dick was taking over his current mush for brains.

Sasuke studiously avoided looking at her, feeling unusually self-conscious under the piercing eyes watching his progress, completely different from her light chatter echoing in his room. His headache had considerably eased by the time he finished draining his tea with the pill.

He hadn't drunk green tea since Itachi died. He waited for the accompanying sting at the thought, but he only felt a peculiar wash of peace as her voice permeated his room. He felt lazy and content and Sasuke thought there was no place he'd rather be right now.

He was surprised out of his thoughts when he was abruptly pulled to his feet. Sasuke felt himself flush at the blue gaze appraising him, his face reddening completely when her eyes lingered on his bare chest and his nipples hardened in response.

Oh. Damn. Fuck.

He couldn't meet her eyes—not that it mattered as she was looking at his table anyway. "Anou, are you going to bed like that or are you doing some manly stuff you have to?"

Sasuke didn't remember what he had said, probably because his mind had blacked out the humiliation of stuttering an answer, any answer, as he escaped to his bathroom. Before he knew it, he had stripped off his boxers and he was under the showers, soaping himself, groaning at his lapse to idiocy and perversion.

Stupid. Idiot. Moron. Imbecile. Retard.

He punched his temple with every word, grimacing at the pain.

Pervert.

He glared down at his body, specifically his chest. Traitorous nipples. Gah, he wanted to pinch them so much to hurt them but they were his nipples and they were bound to hurt a fucking lot. Stupid, perverted nipples. What kind of a body did he have?

Sasuke glowered at his cock.

And you! No overtaking my mental functions, dammit!

"Um, are you drowning in there? 'Coz I'm getting worried and I'd probably knock your door down and save your pale little—"

"I'm coming!" he yelled. His eyes rounded as his words bounced inside his bathroom. His face, red, glared at his dick for daring to twitch in interest. Fucking hell. Why did that have to be his answer, of all things?

He heard her clear her voice. Sasuke gave a heartfelt groan in embarrassment before belatedly slapping his mouth shut, his eyes growing wider at the sound he had just made. Hell! Why did his mouth keep digging a bigger hole?

Shit, that sounded so dirty.

"... Okay," she said after clearing her throat once again. Feeling a bit faint from the combination of a blast of renewed headache and mortification, Sasuke quickly shut off the shower and toweled himself dry, wrapped another towel on his waist, threw his bathroom door open, threw his bedroom door open, and stood in front of her, panting with exertion.

"Look, I'm done," he announced, a slight desperation on his tone. "I just took a bath, I didn't do anything else."

She offered a questioning smile after a surprised pause.

"... You didn't brush your teeth?"

He threw her a half-grateful, half-disbelieving look and went to his closet for a fresh pair of boxers. Sasuke finished his business in the bathroom in ten seconds and returned to his room to see her sitting on his bed with her back to him.

Sasuke felt his heart slam in his chest. She was sitting. On his bed. She was sitting on his bed and she looked so gorgeous on ice blue and he wanted to lie down beside her and sleep in her arms forever.

His breath hitched. Forever. Sasuke wanted her, with him, forever. Wanted her with him in a word, in a time, in a place he didn't even believe in before. Even if they didn't touch each other. Even if he couldn't hold her.

"C'mere."

It was enough to him that she was there.

He didn't remember how he got there, on his stomach, with her sitting on his back. Sasuke only remembered gentle hands on his temples, on his neck, on his shoulders, on his eyelids, and dreaming of forever just lying beside each other.

Forever isn't long enough.

And Sasuke finally understood what they meant when they said these words. Because after this night, he was more than a believer—he was a man who had finally accepted, understood.

Forever hadn't even started and it wasn't enough.

Sunset.

The name of the hidden video was Sunset.

For as long as he could remember, he and Itachi had enjoyed watching sunsets together. There was something about the brilliant splashes of colors in the skies that made connecting with each other much more easier—perhaps it was the awe at the splendor of nature, or the hush that seems to fall upon the world, or the gentle reminder that everything that begins must end—sunset signaled the beginning of their time together.

It was also during sunsets when Itachi would leave two days after he had arrived.

Sasuke sighed. He had skipped school again—he didn't feel up to facing the world just yet. He was entitled to a little time to himself, wasn't he? Besides, he hadn't skipped school on the days following Itachi's burial. His teachers had been worried about him and even kindly asked him to have a time to himself to grieve, but Sasuke had simply stared at them before saying, in his usual monotone, that he was fine.

He wasn't fine now and he would use this time to himself—he deserved that much. Sasuke may be an Uchiha but he was still human.

Nodding to himself, Sasuke opened the video and promptly jolted back in shock at the electric blue suddenly dominating his screen.

Shit! The blue screen!

"Oi oi, Ita-Ita, what's the deal with the cam?"

He froze. That voice. It was... terribly familiar...

"Hn. Stop blocking my view with your eye."

Nii-san? Sasuke frowned. Eye?

"Che. You like the color anyway. Bastard."

His stomach dropped.

"Besides, you woke me up too early, inconsiderate ass. I don't even see the mo—The moon's out already? But the sun's still here! Uwah, the sun!"

It was—it was her!

The blue began to draw away, revealing her eyes, her tan face, her two red ribbons holding up her flowing yellow hair, her whole figure in orange and black. Then the screen showed her with her back to the camera, facing the setting sun, sounds of splashing water echoing loudly in his room.

"I feel like a vampire," she went on, chuckling at herself. Her yellow hair shone like molten gold in a furnace, darker against the backdrop of orange and red and the approaching indigo sky. She glanced to the camera, her smile shadowed yet clear. "Haven't seen the sun in so long. Feels like I'm burning."

Somehow, this statement, so casually and playfully delivered, caused a painful twinge in his chest.

"Thanks for the generous offer, teme, but I sleep during the day so it's cool."

"Wait!" she suddenly exclaimed. She whirled to face the camera, blue eyes wide as the endless oceans. "That's it! You're trying to kill me, aren't you? You bastard!"

Sasuke heard his brother chuckle but he was more entranced by her eyes. He had never seen her eyes like these before...

"I knew it!"

Her eyes—they were such... they were such a beautiful blue, a happy blue, a cobalt blue shining with mischief, with joy, dancing and laughing and alive. Like the sky in the interstices of twilight and dawn, like the bottom of the sea as it merges with the ocean, dark yet bright like he had never seen before. They weren't the shards of skies he had seen, not the slivers of broken oceans, not the pieces of spun glass that she always had when she looked anywhere but him—

The sun was shining in the horizon of her eyes.

Sasuke swallowed, his heart clenching. Did she lose the sun in her eyes because of... of Itachi's death? Because those eyes, her eyes like this... they never existed in his world.

"But Ita-Ita..." a soft smile played on her lips, "thank you."

Ita... Ita?

A pale hand—Itachi's hand—appeared from the lower right corner of the screen and stroked the blonde's cheek. His eyes, widening in surprise at the tender gesture, widened further when she leaned into his touch with a tranquil expression on her face. His breath caught when her eyes fluttered open, a stunning shot of blue against the orange-painted sky.

"Itachi..." she murmured. Her voice brought heat behind his eyes.

For a second, the screen showed nothing but her lithe figure against the sunset. Then the screen jostled, showing brief snippets of the colorful sky, white sands, smooth tan, before settling on the sea rolling on the shore. Sasuke wondered what was happening at the same time he was afraid to know.

The camera drew back to show her with a foxy grin. She winked at the screen then kicked off her boots, bending down to roll her black pants to her knees. Sasuke felt heat on his cheeks and he slapped his forehead, the video focusing on her ass—his brother's a pervert!—before taking its time as it traveled down to her bare feet. She was dipping a toe in the water.

"Hey Ita-Ita!" she called out. "Water's nice!"

"Hn."

"And look at the sunset! It's so awesome! Yosh!"

A ghostly chuckle. "So it is."

The camera panned to the sky, following the path of the sun as it began to dip into the darkened waters. The sea shone with fragments of sun-spun glass, still against the majesty of the orange swan song.

"How long do we have?" her quiet voice drifted off-screen. The camera panned to the right, showing her standing knee-deep in the waters, her features serious. Sasuke wondered what the question meant.

"An hour or less," his brother replied. She nodded and waded back to shore. She ungracefully plopped down on the sand and patted the space beside her. She rolled her eyes when the camera, in turn his brother, remained where it was.

"Sit down already!" she whined. A deep chuckle and she scowled, put off that she was denied. "What's up with the video thingie anyway? You wanna be a cameraman now?"

"I bought this with Sasuke a while ago," Itachi's bodiless voice replied. "I believe it's a good time to use."

She rolled her eyes again. "And here I thought you're done talking 'bout your snotty kid brother," she said. Sasuke frowned at her words. "Turns out it's wishful thinking."

Itachi laughed. It was a sound so rare it brought an uncomfortable lump in Sasuke's throat.

"Oh shut up," she grumbled. Her cheeks were dusted pink. "So what if I'm jealous? He's all you ever talk about. Stupid cocky bastard."

His eyes bulged. She was jealous of him?

Wait. Why would she be jealous of him?

Something icy was beginning to spread under his skin. He wouldn't—wouldn't think about it. She and Itachi—were probably really close friends.

"Who would you rather I talk about?" Itachi asked, his voice clearly teasing.

"Anyone who's not a snot-nosed whiny possessive nerd," she grumbled. Sasuke's eye twitched. "Honestly, who falls asleep hugging his books? And oooooh, the way he glared at you when you took his onigiri that one night! I just wanted to snap his neck in two!"

... Wow. His brother was snorting. While laughing.

Damn him.

"Nii-san, Nii-san, can you change my nappies?" she said, eyes wider and voice deeper. Sasuke wanted dearly to reach through the screen and wring her lovely neck. "Nii-san, the thunderstorm is scares me! Did you see the five stars sensei gave me, huh huh Nii-san? Nii-san, I makes you favorite tea! Nii-san, can I has onigiri?" Her nose wrinkled after her accurate interpretations, Itachi's laughter the background music to her play. If he could, Sasuke would revive his brother and kick him in the face for just laughing while she spoke. Itachi didn't even defend him!

Stupid Nii-san.

She gave a dramatic sigh. "Honestly, he's an Ita-Ita fanboy."

His eye wouldn't stop twitching. His brother, meanwhile, had settled to chuckling. "Sasuke is precious to me, you know that," Itachi said. Sasuke felt appeased. Somewhat.

She broke into a rueful smile, a hand scratching on her head. "I know. And he's not that bad. Not really." Her lower lip stuck out. "He's still a nerd, though." She stood up, her hands clasping behind her. "And you did an awesome job raising him by your lonesome, too. I'm sure he's mighty proud to be your brother."

Tears sprang into his eyes, blurring and clearing his vision at the same time.

I am. Very much so.

"Not as hot as you, though," she added cheerfully. "He's a scrawny thing. Does he eat at all? Or does he just run on Ita-Ita fanboy high?"

That's it. He would have to find a way to make her pay for all her comments about him.

Another chuckle and she smiled. Then, she turned to the horizon, her elegant neck craning up to the stars that had begun to dot the darkening skies. She released a breath and turned to the camera, breaking into a slow, breathtaking smile.

"I have another precious person," his brother suddenly said, his voice a quiet tenor to the chorus of the sea. She tilted her head in question, her hair brushing against her shoulder. "Maybe you know her? Her name is Uzumaki Naruto and she is a very unpredictable girl."

Surprised blue eyes stared at the screen.

"Her favorite food is miso pork ramen, and she can consume as much as twelve in a sitting on a good night," Itachi went on. "She likes the color orange and she sleeps with a walrus cap on her head. She adores frogs and has a special spot for foxes."

Her eyes shone like Sasuke had never seen before.

"When she laughs, her eyes crinkle at the corner and they curve into little half-moons, as if she had stolen a part of the moon and had put it on her eyes. She has many smiles—and I wonder, sometimes, if they are as many as the stars—but my favorite is her smile when she thinks no one is looking. It looks so soft, like what I fancy a cloud to be. It also carries her heart, as if all the words have dried up and she overflows with emotions she couldn't voice, and she unconsciously makes her smile small because fewer words are needed to express the most important things."

His brother paused when she—Naruto, her name was Naruto—showed the exact same smile he was describing. Sasuke had to agree with Itachi, the air in his lungs vanishing with the curving of those lips—it was such a stunning smile.

"She enjoys the rain and she dances under it even when someone is watching," his brother continued. "She drinks milk a lot because it's her favorite, and because of the misguided notion that she would reach my height with prolonged drinking before she sleeps." The smile on her face turned into a playful pout and Itachi chuckled. "She likes to play pranks and she is secretly fond of gardening, and she smells of the flowers she first showed to me. It takes her a long time to sleep in an unfamiliar place, but it takes her an even longer time to wake up when she sleeps in the presence of someone she trusts."

Itachi paused and Sasuke could feel it, how his brother braced himself. He felt his heart skip a beat for a reason he didn't know.

"And I hope, when this is over, that she would sleep and live the rest of her life with me in a two-storey house with a stock white picket fence beside my brother's house."

Sasuke began to shake.

Her eyes, round in shock, softened into glimmers of ocean. She bit her bottom lip as she huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, the corners of her mouth twitching, her cheeks flushing with a beautiful rosy hue. "She'd agree, you know, if the house has a garden on the back. And a swing set too," she said, her nose pointed up. She bit harder down on her bottom lip, the smile she couldn't hide anymore tremulous, and she wiped an eye with the back of her hand. "And I think she'd be happy too, even without them, as long as he would live the rest of his life with her, too. Bastard soul and arrogant smile and devilish looks and all."

His heart stopped.

Sasuke had known it, at the back of his mind, the true nature of her relationship with his brother. It was apparent when he began sleeping with her, clearer when he began to consider her actions around him when they were both awake. The way she consciously chose not to look at him, the way she wouldn't kiss him, the way she talked about him—fondly, lightly, always in the present—the way she reacted to staying in Itachi's room, sleeping in his bed... Even the way her body responded to the scent of chamomile saturating Itachi's red pillows...

But now, faced with this evidence, the fact that Itachi and Naruto were lovers... were actually planning to spend the rest of their lives together...

"Perhaps a koi pond as well?"

It hurt.

"If frogs can hang out there too!"

The screen jerked and he heard a loud yelp that he knew his brother would never admit to doing. And then they were standing, together, Naruto with her hand curved around the hair on Itachi's nape, forcing his brother to stoop down to her height.

"Near the porch, then we can have your brother over and drink as much green tea as we can, ne?"

Sasuke had never seen his nii-san so happy.

"And for the record, this is Uzumaki Naruto-sama and Uchiha Itachi-chan would be my pretty little wife, hohoho!"

He had never seen her so happy, too.

She gave Itachi a loud kiss on a long line on his face and flashed a victory sign to the screen. There was a faint dusting of color on his brother's cheeks even as his brows wrinkled about the wife comment.

Sasuke squeezed his eyes shut, hating the bitterness burning in his eyes.

"Better believe it, yosh!"

"Naruto..."

He slammed his laptop shut.

It hurt so much.

Let this fact reveal a truth about the transience of life—the sun in your eyes may not be eternal, but there are billions of stars ready to shine where it shone, brighter and warmer than the sun you had lost.